The thought never even crossed my mind! Colostrum was all DS got until milk came in. The middys were commenting on hearing him gulp down my colostrum as though it were milk, I had sooooo much. But they don't need that much anyway, as PP have said, they have tiny tummys. And I actually have seen posters in the hospital visually demonstrating how much a newborn can fit in.

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MarkandSandy .. the hospital did that to me too! A Dr gave DS formula when he was less than an HOUR old! I was f**king FUMING to say the least! He had been taken to SCN with breathing difficulties, I had barely had time to shower and argue about being taken up before a middie was there apologising profusely on the drs behalf.

As a naive first time mum, I got all my breastfeeding info from my grandmothers..their advice was "stick him on the boob and he will eat, there will be enough"... Aside for the formula hiccup, it worked! I had no idea about colostrum until I was in the hospital. I didn't bother with birth classes because I had so many hospital visits as DS was a sick little boy and I was so stressed not knowing if he would make it.

My ds was in special care for 8 days and wasn't allowed milk of any kind for the first 2 days, but the midwives helped me express so there was some colostrum ready for when he was allowed NG feeds. Thankfully he only needed NG feeds for 24 hours before being allowed milk orally. The SCN nurses were great and always encouraged me to express and my ds got my colostrum/milk first before being offered any formula. They really didn't want to give him formula but he was badly jaundiced and needed to have heaps of milk to help flush the bad stuff out of his system. Once my milk came in (around day 5 or 6) he needed very little formula and he was mostly on EBM. I went on to BF successfully til 12 months.

With my dd she was nearly 10 pounds and she was starving. Thankfully she didn't need special care and this whole feeding a brand new bub was new to me. The paed & midwives insisted that she get formula top-ups cause she would be hungry cause she was so big. But, in the same breath they were encouraging me to express as much as possible after a feed to help bring my milk in quicker and to offer any extra drops of colostrum that I possibly could to my dd. Turns out my dd had a broken collar bone (they did an X-Ray but it didn't show up - apparently that happens) and her screams & unsettled behaviour for the first few days were probably due to pain . Don't get me wrong, at times she was hungry and she drank the formula happily, but quite often she refused it but still seemed distressed and it wasn't for a couple of weeks that we worked out why. Thankfully my milk was fully in by Day 4 or 5 and my bubba drank her full with no more formula top-ups and next week she'll be 6 months old and still being BF

With DS the hospital gave him a bottle on day 2 as they thought they were doing the right thing. My grandma (replacement mum) passed away so to give me a chance to process everything they took him into the nursery while there they gave him one. :-( it destroyed my chances of successfully BF, as once he got that bottle he became lazy and nothing I tried with the help of my lactation nurse worked :-(

That's EXACTLY what happened to me, except it was formula from a bottle for the first 12 hours, which is how long it was before I got to see him (even though DS was only up the hall).
He'd latch on like a pro, suck a couple of really good strong sucks, and then let go and start yelling. It was more effort than a bottle and nothing I did was going to convince him to stay on. They did help me to express colostrum for him to be given, and man did they make me feel like a dairy cow for the whole thing .
You could tell they were p!ssy about having to help me because it took their time but I couldn't get a damn drop myself. But when I asked midwives to help me when he wouldn't stay on the breast, they'd get annoyed with me and just say "he's latching really well, it's not his fault", obviously implying it was my fault. What could I do? They were the ones that gave him the damn bottle in the first place without asking me!!!
It put me off, and then when I got my infection I kind of felt relieved that I was deciding not to put that medication in his system by bfing. I had a reason not to feel guilty about not bfing when I had every road block put in my way by the very same people that are supposed to help .

I know a lot more now, so when I finally have another bub I'll be doing my best to bf .

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Mothers are designed to feed babies to colostrum until the milk comes in and babies are designed to survive off colostrum until the milk comes in. Colostrum is very important as it contains high levels of immune boosting anit-bodies and is a rich source of nutrition while waiting a few days for your milk to come in. This is what nature intended for humans why would you want to unnecessarily interfere with the natural process? If there are no feeding problems your baby won't go hungry.

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